


Still Here

by orphan_account



Series: Indulgence [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe- All Human, Blind Derek, Blind School AU, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Intern Stiles, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Principal Laura, Single dad Derek, Slow Burn, Teacher Derek, grad student Stiles, past Derek/Jennifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Okay like first of all, your deadpan is way freaky and it’s going to take me a while before I don’t immediately take you seriously,” Stiles says.  Then he smacks Derek on the ribs.  “Secondly, you’re kind of a dickhead.”“Well, to be fair, you knew that about me already, and you’re still here,” Derek points out.Stiles huffs, then leans in to kiss his neck, then the edge of his jaw, then his mouth again.  “I’m still here,” he says.  “I’m not going anywhere.”





	Still Here

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically self indulgent fluff. I've read a lot of blind Stiles AUs, not really any Blind Derek, so this is my contribution.
> 
> Enjoy the Sterek fluff.

_“…daddy?”_

Derek groans, pushing his face deeper into the pillow, faintly sure the noise was a dream until a sharp bite to the back of his neck, and a giggle.

“Daddeeeeeeee.”

Derek’s hand shoots out, fumbling across the edge of the nightstand until it comes into contact with the small clock which reads out—in a faintly almost British accent, “Seven-fifteen-ay-em.”

“Why,” Derek groans, mashing his face further into the cotton. “Miriam, why do you hate me.”

“Daddy, I want pak-cakes. Auntie said you could make me some wiff some strawberry.”

Derek breathes out, takes a minute to fantasize about when Miriam is several years older than her persistent four, and can make her pak-cakes with strawberries on her own and Derek isn’t required to set foot out of bed on a summer week day before nine.

Rolling onto his back, he shifts her until she’s straddling his chest, bouncing lightly with all the energy of her four rambunctious years. He feels the pudge of her hand, which is getting longer, thinner by the day, give him a pat on the cheek.

“But can I have syrup?”

“If you’re having nana’s jam on your pancakes, you’re not having syrup,” he says, though he knows full well he’ll probably give in to whatever she wants. “Give me five minutes, okay?”

“I can get all the…I can get the stuff out,” she says, and scrambles off him.

He hears her feet padding down the hall so he sits up to shout, “Stay away from the stove,” like he does every time. They haven’t had a scare just yet, but she’s getting more curious as each year passes, and he knows at some point he really is going to have to teach her to function around the stove.

Derek can’t help but be anxious about it, though. For someone like him—both a single dad, _and_ blind, he tends to be judged more harshly than most. And he’d probably call bullshit if it hadn’t been for his ex calling DCS on him in spite of her being in prison, the report nothing more than the fact that he was totally blind and therefore unable to care for the child.

It was in retribution to Derek testifying against her when she’d lost control in a fit of rage, and attacked him. Jennifer didn’t want the kid, and she was well aware her previous record was the reason she was put away, but she also didn’t like Derek walking away unscathed.

The whole affair would have gone nowhere if the state didn’t automatically believe people like Derek were incapable of doing what most other humans could do—and provide care for their child. Needless to say, he’d never forget the moment Miriam was taken from his arms, given to his mother with instruction that Derek wasn’t to be with her until the investigation was concluded, and then he was told it would move along faster if he cooperated. Then they handed him a stack of papers, all written in print, and when he informed them he couldn’t read the papers because, as they well knew—considering the nature of the call—he was blind. He didn’t pretend like he couldn’t hear in their voices the tone like he’d just proved them all right. But his sister didn’t hesitate to read everything, line-by-line, as angry as they both were.

Derek bitterly engaged in all their demands, like a goddamn circus monkey, showing off his ability to wash clothes and cook meals, and change a goddamn diaper even though he’d been doing that for months now, without help. He’d swallowed back bile when she asked him to show her how he kept track of things like Mimi’s socks without getting them mismatched, and he wanted to grab the social worker by the front of her shirt and demand to know if other, sighted parents lost custody over their children for a case of putting a polka dot sock with a striped one.

He didn’t, of course. He merely showed her his safety pin technique to keep track of everything, and he even managed not to lose control of his rage and punch her when she said how impressed she was at such a simple concept. He wanted to wax sarcastically poetic for hours about how _thankful_ he was, as a Yale grad with a master’s degree, who had been teaching for nearly ten years, that she found his little system impressive.

But he did what he was asked, and cooperated, and talked to Miriam on the phone every day so she wouldn’t forget his voice. And three, eternal weeks went by before he got the phone call from a harried DCS agent saying, “Sorry, I forgot to call you last week. Your case has been closed. I’ve sent someone to your mother’s house with papers releasing your daughter.

He sat the twenty minutes it took for Talia to arrive, and he swore taking her in his arms, she’d grown five inches, and twelve pounds, and smelled different.

None of that was true, but no one begrudged him for letting her sleep in his bed for the next month.

Nor did anyone say a word when he was a little on edge, even years later. The last thing Derek needed was for Miriam to go to school with a burn on her arm from trying to cook, and another report being made. He treated her like glass—not because he thought she wasn’t capable of being a rough-and-tumble kid just like his sisters were, just like his brothers, but because one wrong step and they’d take her again.

He wasn’t sure he’d survive a round two.

She was all he had.

Derek found himself in the kitchen, listening to Miri hum along to the Moana soundtrack as he mixed up the pancake batter. Licking his finger, he tapped the bottom of the griddle, in the exact way he’d always been taught not to do—but he did it anyway. It sizzled and he grabbed the ladle, filling it and letting the pancake pour into the molds Laura had given him a few years ago.

“Daddy, auntie makes me pak-cakes with Ms on them. Can you make uh M, daddy?”

Derek sighs. “It’ll look all wrong if I do it, Mimi. You can have auntie make you M-cakes next time she comes over.”

“Am I going to auntie’s today?” Miriam asks, her tone letting him know she’s starting to get bored. Which is never good.

Derek sighs. “Auntie Cora’s. Auntie Laura and I have to go to the school for some work.” He says it with only a faint trace of bitterness. It’s orientation for the new-hires, and he hates this part. He’s deliberately avoided going into administration because he hates this part of it. But somehow his sister—who had been the principal of the Beacon Hills School for the Blind and Visually Impaired for nearly seven years now—had somehow strong-armed him into helping with the new hire orientation for the last three years.

It’s his own personal hell, really.

It’s a little bit that he hates people, it’s a lot that the state keeps strong-arming them into hiring sighted staff over blind staff because they think they’ll be more capable. It’s irony of the most painful sort, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Laura’s been fighting for years, and he understands the irony there, that his sighted sister is vying for people to hire blind people who might one day take her job, but the best part about Laura is that she gets it.

“Are you takin’ Miguel?” Miriam asks, her mouth thick with something—probably strawberries or bananas. “Can he come play wiff me today?”

“He has to come with me,” Derek says. His guide dog is only part-time at the school, and sometimes goes to Cora’s with Miriam. But during the summer he’s full time, and Derek feels a little more grounded when he’s got his hand around Miguel’s harness while dealing with newbies.

God.

“Here you go, princess,” he says, and hears her huff and mutter something about how she’s _‘not a princess, she’s a dragon,’_ and he ignores her in favor of washing up and turning the griddle off, then helping himself to a protein shake which he knows isn’t going to get him through the day, but it’ll do the trick. “I’m going to shower, okay? You pick up your toys from the living room, then let Miguel outside.”

“Can I give him a peanut butter biscuit?” she wheedles.

Derek sighs. “Only one, okay? Then go pick out what you want to wear.”

“Okay,” she says, and he leans over, touches her shoulder, then kisses her on the side of the head before wandering off to get ready for the day.

\--- 

The fours aren’t specifically easier than any other stage, but Derek’s grateful he and Miriam can get out the door without her screaming and putting up a fight. Instead she takes his hand as his other holds Miguel’s harness, and she jabbers the entire way to Cora’s house, which is only a few blocks over, but enough that Miriam works off a lot of her pancake energy by the time they reach Cora’s front door.

“Newbies?” Cora asks as she pulls Miriam inside.

Derek sighs, leaning against the door. Miguel sits heavy against his legs, like he just knows Derek needs a moment of the touch comfort. “It’s going to be a long day. Do you need anything?”

“I’m good. You’d better hurry, the bus has been getting here early the last few days. New driver.”

“Of course he is,” Derek mutters, then calls out his goodbye to Miriam who acknowledges his farewell with a faint hum of some kind. Then he turns and makes his way to the bus stop he’s been using for the last decade. It’s a long drive, but he enjoys the thirty minutes of peace before he’s shuffled off into the state-funded school void.

\--- 

Derek slips into the conference room, and there’s a handful of voices he recognizes, and the smell of starbucks which he wants to kiss Laura for. He can hear the lilt of her voice near the table they always set up snacks, and he takes a quick inventory of what’s there—a tray of coffees, pastries—probably the cheese danish stuff he hates so much—and something that smells like fruit salad. What he really wants is a big-ass plate of eggs-bennies and the strongest coffee the diner has to offer, but he’s got this rabbit food instead and his sister to thank for it.

“This coffee better be good,” he says, touching the braille sticky tab on the lid of his cup to confirm it’s his own.

It is, thank god, strong and loaded with cream and caramel syrup.

“Stop being such a whiny bitch about everything,” Laura says, elbowing him gently as she reaches past him for something. Her mouth is full and sticky when she speaks next. “It’s not like I’m asking you to climb Everest.”

“Yeah,” Derek intones, “if it was Everest I’d get like a plaque and a holiday dedicated to me for being such a brave soul, daring to climb rocks while not being able to see.”

“And instead you get mediocre recognition for being a paid teacher showing up to do the bare minimum,” she says. “Go sit down. Chairs are at noon, like always.”

Miguel leads the way, having done this enough times he can take Derek to the seat furthest back, against the wall where the sun’s coming in and Laura’s voice isn’t so piercing and annoying. The chairs are just as uncomfortable as they always are, and the meeting hasn’t started yet but he’s already bored and desperate to get out of there.

The room begins to fill up soon though. Most of the people are seasoned staff, and they’re coming for the free, shit breakfast and because Laura told them they had to. They get to leave though, after half an hour of her yammering about this year’s fundraising and what new, fresh, hellish budget cuts the state’s leveled at them forcing them to close this program and that program. Nothing new. Derek’s been doing this long enough he feels confident in betting one entire paycheck on being able to guess what Laura’s going to say.

The new teachers and staff arrive not long after that, too. Derek’s pretty sure most of the new teachers are in the early education building, since the middle and high school are pretty well staffed. It means whoever they are, Derek won’t be dealing with them much, and he takes some comfort in knowing he won’t have to try and be social or friendly with people he doesn’t know after today.

“…a big welcome to our new staff,” Laura’s saying, and there’s a tittering of applause Derek absolutely does not take part in. “We’ll get to intros in a few minutes, but I want to get through this year’s itinerary so the rest of you can get back to what little summer vacation we have left.” She pauses for the laugh she knows she’s going to get. Derek can hear the high, tense, forced chuckles from the new staff as they try to be polite to the absolute nerd that his sister is.

She goes on to talk about the opening year orientation and bake sale that’s going to help fund the drama department. “It’s on the chopping block,” Laura says, “but it’s also one of our most successful programs, and I don’t want to deal with a school full of devastated kids, so a lot of our funding is being routed to the arts.”

Derek expects as much. Sports is taking a hit this year because arts took a hit last year, and they’re keeping goalball—one of the few extracurricular things Derek enjoys coaching—so that’s all he really cares about.

“I’ll be emailing all of you an updated list this coming week,” she says. “I’ll need a response in a week, at the latest, letting me know which ones you’re going to work. And you need to work at least two, preferably more. Derek, that means you.”

Derek huffs. It’s just like her to call him out in front of everyone, and he hears a few sighs of sympathy nearby. “Yes, thank you Laura,” he says, his tone as dry as he can manage. “I’ll be there with bells on.”

That actually gets a full laugh from someone who doesn’t sound familiar at all. A guy, probably, with a slightly higher, young voice. The guy whispers, “Nice,” after his giggles tone down.

“Anyway,” Laura says, then goes back into her speech and Derek zones out once more.

He half listens to the intros after that.

“…and last but not least, we have Mr. Stilinkski who is going to be interning with us for twelve weeks before heading back to Beacon Hills public school…” Laura begins.

And Derek can’t seem to stop himself from scoffing and saying, “Oh good. Yes, we should be wasting time and resources on someone so they can take it back to the _public school_.”

He hears the silence like a heavy weight, and Laura’s tiny sigh as she just ignores him and goes on. “…so we’ll make sure he gets a warm welcome and a warm send off. We’re excited to have you here, Mr. Stilinski.”

“…thank you?” It comes out like a nervous question, and Derek’s pretty sure it was the same guy who had laughed earlier.

Laura finishes up the speech like she does every year, then they’re dismissed for the food and shitty breakfast which Derek doesn’t bother to partake in. Instead he strokes his fingers through Miguel’s soft scruff and closes his eyes and waits for the hell to begin.

“You look even more constipated than usual,” comes a voice to his right. Erica.

He can’t help a smile. “Strange. I had plenty of fiber this morning.”

The chair next to him squeaks as she sits. “You really trying to make mortal enemies before ten am?”

“If I don’t get a baker’s dozen by noon, I’ve failed,” Derek says, then sits up a little, though he keeps his hand on Miguel. “Seriously though. Not a single blind teacher, and this fucking guy who wants to come here for some free education for the public school? Laura really wants me to just sit here in silence about it?”

“I get it,” Eric says, and she does. She’s sighted, but her husband Boyd and two children aren’t. Boyd and Eric have both worked at the school nearly as long as Derek, and they know what it’s like to fight as hard as they do for what little they can get from the state. But Derek’s also a grumpy asshole, a carefully cultivated personality he has no plans of getting rid of. “By the way, Miriam called me this morning.”

Derek groans. “Oh good.”

“She said that you wouldn’t let her have ice cream for dinner last night even though the stuff you have is low fat _and_ has peanuts in it, which is healthy,” Erica pitches her voice to sound like a four year old, “and daddy lets me have peanuts on my sandwich for my peanut butter and jelly and it’s not fair, he’s just being mean. Can I come stay with you?”

“You can have her,” Derek deadpans, not meaning it for a second.

“I’m sure Lil and Matty would love it, but if she wasn’t there to look after your yeti-ass,” she pauses, and he startles just a little as she scratches at his scruff which can probably be called a beard now, “you’d go full mountain man and that’s not good for anyone, Derek. Not even you.”

Derek huffs, but he’s smiling a little now and he knows he just has to get through the day, and get through this ridiculous campus tour, and then he can go home and maybe—just maybe—give Mimi a little ice cream if she eats all her greens.

\--- 

“So when I tell you that you’re going to be giving the intern a tour,” Laura says about twenty minutes later, “how much of a fit are you going to throw?”

“When have I ever…”

“And how hard are you going to try to drive him away?”

Derek sighs, passing a hand down his face. “I’m a professional,” he says dryly.

“You’re also a dickhead,” she reminds him. And well…yeah. “Look, I know you hate this, but we get a pretty nice stipend from the university for doing this, and we could use it so…”

“I get it,” he says through clenched teeth, because he does and he doesn’t, but he understood every penny is hard-fought and she’s not in a position to turn stuff down. It’s a good idea to keep in the University’s good graces, especially when they let the school have first pick of electronics and supplies whenever they get new upgrades.

“Just…be nice for one hour, okay? I know it’s going to be difficult, and painful, but you can do this. I believe in you.”

“I hate you,” is his only reply.

She pats him on the shoulder. “There’s my baby bro.” She pinches his cheek and he punches her lightly on the arm. “I’m going to get him, and you can do the tour. We’re meeting in the cafeteria after for wrap-up, then you’re off the hook.”

He breathes out. “Yeah, fine. Whatever.”

He hears the sound of her shoes, a dull thud on the thin carpet. His hand clenches around Miguel’s harness and he tries not to think about how satisfying it would be to just…walk away, to jump on the bus and grab Miriam from Cora’s and go home, and suffer Laura’s wrath later.

He’s pretty sure she won’t hate him forever if he does it.

But then he reminds himself he’s a thirty-year-old professional who is above petty things, even if he’s going to be salty as hell about it all day.

“Derek, this is Mr. Stilinski. The intern…”

“Yes, I’m aware. Thank you,” Derek says without a lot of inflection.

“Just…please be nice,” she says, more exhaustion than anything in her tone.

“You’re not paying me to be nice,” he replies, then he just sort of turns on his heel and starts toward the doors, not bothering to check if the intern is following him.

\--- 

Derek manages to give the most bland, dry tour he can manage. They start with the front offices, since that’s where they were to begin with, and then he takes the intern outside and along the path, letting Miguel know carefully which way they’re going, and keeping his talk to a minimum.

“Didn’t there used to be a field here?” the guy asks suddenly, and Derek freezes, coming to a complete stop.

“How…”

“I’ve been here before.” The guy’s tone implies he’s not going to say much more than that, and Derek finds himself irritated he doesn’t know this guy’s name, doesn’t know really what he wants, or what he’s hoping to gain from all of this.

“I’m not going to call you Mr. Stilinski,” is what he says.

The guy hesitates, then laughs softly. “Okay, man. You can call me Stiles, like the rest of the world.”

Derek’s brows dip and feeling bold from his agitation, he reaches out and swipes his hand at the intern until he touches solid chest, and fabric with some sort of texture—kind of like a polo shirt. The staff badge is hanging from a lanyard and he pinches it with his fingers, noticing that _Stiles_ doesn’t flinch or pull away.

His fingers search out and eventually find the braille tag that’s added to every single lanyard badge. “M,” Derek begins, because the letters under his fingers are familiar but they don’t make any _sense_. “My? I…how do you pronounce this?” Derek asks grudgingly.

Stiles laughs, then carefully plucks the badge away from Derek’s hands. “Trust me, I’m not even sure myself. I wasn’t telling you to call me Stiles to be an asshole. My parents cursed me with this Polish monstrosity I think solely to make my life hellish growing up. I’ve gone by Stiles since I can remember.”

Derek hesitates, but eventually sighs and says, “Stiles, then.”

“Does that mean I can call you Derek?”

He doesn’t answer, instead he turns and starts walking toward the track field, since the path leads past the dorms, and then the high school buildings. “I’d like to get this over with as quickly as I can. Then you can get back to posting your inspiration porn pics on facebook to show the world what a good deed you did, interning with all these poor blind kids.”

“I…” Stiles stops talking, and Derek can hear the way his footfalls pick up a little as he keeps pace with Derek and Miguel. “That’s not fair.”

“Is it wrong though?” Derek challenges. He stops when he reaches where he knows the field is, and gives his dry, cursory explanation of the way the track field is set up to assist the students. It’s not like he doesn’t want Stiles to have the information, he just doesn’t want to give fuel to yet another shitty social media post about how _grateful_ and _inspired_ the sighted guy is by these sad little blind kids who do so much that others can’t. Which is bullshit, but no one wants to see it for what it is.

“You don’t know me,” is what Stiles says eventually.

“Not personally, no,” Derek concedes. “But if you don’t think I’ve met a hundred of you…” He turns toward Stiles, blinking a little because he can feel the burn of the sun on his face and he regrets not bringing his sunglasses to take the edge off. He closes his eyes instead, then says, “But people like you come in a baker’s dozen, Stiles. The kid who helped a blind man across the street one day, then got curious and looked up videos of blind athletes winning Paralympic medals, or climbing mountains, or doing grocery shopping _all on their own_. You’re the kind of person who goes to third world countries to build houses for a weekend and come home with dirt under your nails and an ego the size of a Greek hero who just saved the world.”

“I’ve never done that,” Stiles begins, but Derek’s just too burned out to let him continue.

“You come here for six weeks, to what? Make yourself feel good about your education? To spend six weeks scraping off the top of everything we’ve spent years here working for, and you get to scamper off to your school and tell everyone you’re the expert in disability education now—and none of it will actually matter, because you’ll never have to apply it to anything. But oh, it’s going to look good on a resume, isn’t it?”

Derek knows now he’s being deliberately rude, but he’s done this so many times now and he just wants it to stop because people like Stiles aren’t ever going to understand why people like him hurt the school.

“Why are you so angry?” Stiles asks, his voice very quiet.

“Because it’s people like you who make it harder to do what we do here,” Derek says plainly. “It’s people like you who get a cursory six weeks of education, and then the state uses people like you against us. Saying that we don’t need funding, we don’t need to expand, there’s no reason for the visually impaired students not to mainstream in the public schools where they’ll be denied access to sports and art and science and _anything else_ that a public school classroom isn’t going to have accommodations for.” He stops to breathe, waits for Stiles to say something, but he doesn’t. “All because a handful of teachers got two months’ worth of diet education and call themselves experts. You skip off to your life where you never have to deal with the fallout, and meanwhile my sister is spending eighty hours a week here in her office just trying to keep the damn doors open.”

Stiles clears his throat, then says, “Laura probably didn’t tell you that I’ve been on the campus a bunch of times before so I don’t need to finish the um… I should…I’m gonna…I’ll just head over to the cafeteria and say goodbye. Um. Thanks, for uh…your time.”

Derek stands there and listens to him walk away, and doesn’t feel guilty for it. It’s high time people just started listening instead of assuming that every good deed was actually a good deed at all.

\--- 

“You’re kind of a dick,” Laura says as Derek’s taking a bite of his sandwich.

Derek sighs through his mouthful of bread. “Did he quit?”

“No, and I’d like him not to.” He hears her swipe his soda from the tray, and she takes a long drink before setting it back down. “I told him that if he talked, you might listen, so can you give him five minutes?”

“Only if you take Miguel for a walk,” Derek says, then reaches down to undo Miguel’s harness. “There are some of the peanut butter treats he likes in my desk, and I can meet you there when I’m done.”

She gives a sigh, one that he knows is fake because she loves the dog probably more than she loves him. He hands off the leash and grimaces as she pats his cheek a little harder than necessary before walking the pup off.

Above the din of the few remaining staff, Derek can hear hesitant footfalls, and then the eventual creak of the bench as Stiles takes his seat across from him.

“I told my sister I’d listen,” he says. He doesn’t mention there was a price for it.

Stiles clears his throat. “I didn’t think about what you’d said. I mean, before I applied for the internship. About how people like me make it harder for you to do what you do.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Derek starts, but remembers he’s supposed to be listening. He makes a go-on motion with his hand, and then takes another bite of his lunch.

Stiles waits a moment. “My sophomore year of high school, my best friend and I made the lacrosse team at Beacon Hills High. We both sucked at it,” he laughs softly. “I was kind of a weedy loser and he had the worst asthma, but the coach thought he could fill some spaces. Scott was better than me at it—or well, I guess more motivated, so when this guy Danny caught mono right before the first game of the season, coach threw him in. It was huge, right? Like the greatest moment of his life. I remember he was just standing there like a dumbass, in the middle of the field with this stupid grin on his face like someone had just announced it was going to be Christmas for the entire year.”

Derek waits, because he knows there’s something coming.

“He didn’t even get a chance to make a single shot on goal. The throw was reckless, clipped him right in the back of the head. It was kind of one of those one in a million shots. Like, Scott’s head was tipped down at just the right angle to leave that sliver of space the ball happened to hit, at the exact speed it would take to crack his skull and give him permanent cortical damage.” There’s a tapping sound, and Derek thinks it’s Stiles’ fingers against his paper plate. He seems extra fidgety right now, and Derek isn’t sure if it’s from nerves, or if it’s just natural. He says nothing though, giving Stiles a chance to continue. “They waited like six weeks, to see if anything would come back. He got some…I don’t even know. I guess he started being able to see movement and stuff, but that was it, and god…things were just…” He lets out a slightly hysterical laugh, and Derek winces.

“You don’t owe me this story,” he points out quickly, because he can hear the pain in Stiles’ voice, and Derek is too familiar with how that goes.

“I kind of do?” Stiles says, almost sounding like a question. “I mean, okay it’s not really your business. You being an asshole about things doesn’t mean I have to try and prove myself or why I’m here. It’s not…I’m not trying to be _inspired_.”

“Okay,” Derek says, because in truth, he doesn’t think Stiles is lying, but he also doesn’t think Stiles realizes that you can be friends with people who have disabilities and still be a kind of abelist asshole without realizing it.

“Scott’s mom had just gotten divorced. His dad was a real piece of shit—like not abusive or anything, but like pretty much worthless. He didn’t even come down when Scott was in the hospital—just like made a single phone call and called it a day. They were barely coping with the injury, and I don’t think it occurred to either of them to check into schools like this. They talked to the principal who promised they could help Scott. But they didn’t do shit. They just had random students taking him from class to class. Like he had some occupational therapy, some mobility training, but Melissa’s insurance only ended up covering like one month worth, so that was it.”

Derek winced. “That’s…wow.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said with a laugh. “The school had a student take notes for him, right? But they’d just hand him these sheets of paper and…” He laughed again. “How the fuck was he supposed to _read_ them? His grades tanked, and I was doing what I could, but my ADHD was a goddamn nightmare at the time, and I think for a while I ended up making things worse instead of better. He figured it out. Melissa made a big enough stink that Scott’s grades came up enough so he could graduate on time. He’s pretty sure some of them were pity-Bs but whatever. It was right before college that I found this place online—Laura was running these summer sessions for adults who needed mobility and orientation training, braille classes, shit like that. You work here, you know what they do,” he says, and Derek can’t help his own slight chuckle.

“I know the classes,” he says.

“He did it alone, but I was up here a lot being in general a pain in everyone’s ass. But I think Laura had a soft-spot for me, and she talked me into…into going into education. To interning here when I was finished with my degree because I don’t know that I’d really add anything to your staff here, but if it means that no one will ever be stuck in a position like Scott was ever again…” He trails off, and Derek sighs.

“I misjudged your situation,” he says. “That doesn’t change the facts.”

Stiles is quiet a moment, then he says, “I know it doesn’t.”

“It makes sense though,” Derek agrees. “Why you would want to.” He’s not one for guilt, and he doesn’t ever feel bad for reading someone the riot act because most of them need a kick in the ass when it comes to their assumptions. And he knows that if Laura liked this kid, she wasn’t going to tell him that having this internship on his file could add to the veritable shit-mountain that was making life here harder from an administrative standpoint. One intern like Stiles wasn’t why they lost art programs, but it was still _part_ of it. So yeah, he doesn’t feel guilty. But he does feel less inclined to chase Stiles away now.

“Thanks for hearing me out,” Stiles says after a bit.

Derek shrugs, then finishes his sandwich. He’s impressed Stiles doesn’t leave in the face of the awkward silence and sandwich chewing. When he’s done, he pushes the paper plate away from himself, then stands up, reaching for his folding cane in his back pocket. “Do you want to see my classroom? I’m not sure where Laura’s going to have you work, but at least you can get a feel for things before the semester gets started.”

As Derek steps over the bench and clicks his cane into place, he hears Stiles’ hesitant, “You sure?”

Derek offers him a smile, figuring Stiles earned it at least a little bit, and he shrugs. “Sure, why not. I mean, I haven’t convinced you to quit, but seeing what you have to face a classroom full of high school kids…”

Stiles laughs. “Shit. Yeah, I remember. It was not pretty.”

Derek grins again. “No, it never is.”

\--- 

The classroom is quiet, which means Laura’s not back with Miguel yet which is fine. The place is set up the way it always is, rarely changing, and most of their upgrades were done at the tail end of the year before, so when he makes his way to his desk, everything’s familiar.

He pushes his chair out, then sits and leans back as he props his cane against the wall. “So this is it. I teach history, and I generally have about three or four aides in the classroom—depending on the needs of the children. Your friend was injured, but a lot of kids with blindness have other disabilities, so it varies from class to class. We’ll have the standard curriculum going, and then whatever modified ones for the other students.” His talk is starting to sound like a PSA, which he hates, but he’s trying to do this nicer now since Stiles’ motivations are actually far less vomit-worthy than they usually are.

“I like it in here,” Stiles says. “It’s really bright.”

“Total blindness is pretty rare,” Derek says with a shrug, though he thinks Stiles probably knows that. “It helps.”

“Are you uh…” He stops, like maybe it’s a rude question. And it can be, but Derek feels like Stiles bared enough of his own soul that he doesn’t mind so much.

“Yeah. I was born with LCA, and when sometime after I turned two, my retinas detached. My parents didn’t catch it until it was too late.” He rubs at his right eye, an old habit.

There’s another moment of awkward silence, then Stiles says, “Oh damn, is this a rubix cube?” Derek then hears him snatch it off the desk, right before he says, “Oh my god, does this say fuck?” in a low hiss.

Derek laughs. He’d forgotten about it, normally it’s put away before the kids come in, and frankly he hadn’t considered that Stiles knew how to read braille. “It was a gag gift from Erica.”

“Oh my god of course it was,” Stiles says. “Shit…fuck…damn. This is so like her.”

Derek’s brows rise up in surprise. “You know her?”

“Yeah dude. If you think Scott and I weren’t going to immediately bond with her and Boyd, you clearly don’t know me that well.”

“I don’t know you at all,” Derek points out flatly, but Stiles seems still utterly unbothered by his tone.

“She got me a box of penis pasta for my twenty-first birthday,” he says, and Derek hears the slight thud of Stiles putting the cube back down. Out of reflex, Derek reaches for it, and he’s suitably impressed Stiles put it exactly where he’d found it. “She had it delivered by one of those singing telegram people or whatever, right in the middle of my midterm. It was mortifying.”

Derek can’t help a slight laugh. “That sounds…vindictive.”

“Maybe she owed me a little,” Stiles concedes. The desk shifts, and Derek can tell Stiles is probably sitting on the edge of it. “I sent her like forty candy-grams that Valentine’s Day. But she and Boyd had broken up for like a hot minute, and I was tired of seeing her all sulky.”

“You should have known better. You have only yourself to blame on that one,” Derek says, because Erica was like that. She’d given him a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey in braille after he gloated about not having to _see_ the book everywhere he went during the holiday shopping season. He tells Stiles that, and feels a funny sort of delight at the burst of laughter from the intern.

Before they can talk much more, Derek hears the jingle of Miguel’s leash, and Laura walks in a moment later. Derek’s lap is met with a snuffling snout, and he gives the dog a few pets, then a kiss on the head before fishing in his drawer for the treats.

“I’m glad to find the both of you still alive. No one’s been eviscerated, no one’s run screaming for the hills.”

“My screaming days are long gone,” Stiles says. “Can I pet your dog now that he’s off the harness?”

Derek gestures a go-ahead at him, and he hears Stiles cooing and talking baby-talk to the pup which only endears him a little further, because Derek might be a grumpy ass, but he’s pretty sure people who don’t baby talk animals are the true monsters of the world. While that’s happening, Derek assures Laura that everything is fine, and fences are mended, and she can go finish up whatever she was trying to finish up.

By the time she leaves, Stiles is back on the desk, and Miguel is collapsed on his feet gnawing on a bone.

“So you read braille,” Derek says after a little more, slightly less awkward silence. “That’s a good start.”

Stiles huffs a laugh. “Oh. God, yeah I learned here, actually. Scott and I begged Laura to let me sit in on the lessons so he’d have someone to practice with later, and she’s such a damn softie in spite of that whole genetic resting bitch face your family seems to have.”

Derek huffs. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles whispers. “ _Anyway_ , so I’m pretty sure Ms. Blake regretted every single second of the time Scott and I spent with her but…”

Derek’s not listening now, because his ears are ringing and his mouth is dry, and he feels like the room is spinning. He doesn’t even come to until he realizes there’s hands on his face, and Stiles is muttering, “Come on, dude. Breathe with me, okay?”

“Don’t call me dude,” Derek says, a half-gasp as he’s coming out of the panic spiral.

Stiles laughs, a little tense, but strangely calming. “There you are. Welcome back. Are you okay? Do you want some like…water or something? That always happens after my panic attacks.”

Derek shakes his head, and busies himself by going into his desk again where he keeps his stash of water bottles and trail mix. He cracks the top and gulps it down, and giving himself a task brings him almost fully back to earth. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“Hey man, no worries,” Stiles says. He’s still very close, and though Derek doesn’t plan on saying anything about it, he’s stupidly grateful for it. “Can I ask what I said? I mean…so I don’t again?”

Derek had forgotten Jennifer—whose real name hadn’t even _been_ Jennifer—had worked here. How she’d met him in a staff meeting, and sold him some sob-story about how she’d lost her eye to cancer as a child, and well…the real story had been so much worse, and had been solely responsible for why she was the way she was. And it didn’t change how Derek felt about her, or how he was just grateful she couldn’t get to him or Miriam, but hearing her name like that, the vicious reminder of how it all began, was a lot.

“Her name was Julia,” he finally says, and Stiles’ breathing hitches a little.

“Uh…?”

“Jennifer Blake? Her name was Julia. She had…lied, got the job. I’m glad she…I’m glad Scott benefitted um. But she…” Derek swallows thickly and he realizes quickly he’s not going to be able to talk about this now.

Stiles saves him from the awkward backing out of the conversation. “No worries, man. I get it. Topic off limits.” He coughs, then says, “I should probably go. I actually have an evening job to make ends meet until the whole non-paying intern thing gives way to my shiny thirty-five k a year salary.”

Derek offers a small smile, nodding, grateful Stiles can see it so he doesn’t have to make a lot of conversation he’s not ready for. What he really wants right then is to go to Cora’s and pick up Miriam, and hold her tight. It happens sometimes, that he thinks of her, and it helps to hold the one and only good thing that had come out of that whole mess. He can regret a lot of things, but he can’t regret his daughter. And it helps.

\--- 

“Daddy,” Miriam says, tugging on his hand a little too hard as they make their way toward the supermarket. “Can I haff coco puffs?”

“I’m not buying you junk for breakfast, Mimi,” Derek says. “But I’ll let you get one candy if you’re good.”

Miriam is quiet as she considers, then she tugs his hand again. “Yeah okay. Is it my turn to go to the counter?”

Derek and Miriam had to go shopping—which was more complicated today since both of his sisters were away, Erica was at her doctor’s appointment in San Francisco seeing her epilepsy specialist, and Miguel was laid up for the next three weeks recovering from a small surgery to have a tumor removed from his leg. It’s not something Derek is wholly unfamiliar with, and it’s easier now that Miriam is big enough she can do things like guide him to customer service so he can get an employee to assist with the shopping. But it’s also a pain in the ass to have someone walking him around who doesn’t know them, because he has to pay twice the attention to what they’re saying, and it leaves him drained by the end of the day. It’s definitely going to be a pizza delivery night, he thinks as he holds his portable cart to carry everything home in.

They reach the customer service counter where Miriam dutifully tells him, “I see the man inna window, but he’s busy, okay?”

“Thank you, princess,” Derek says, and rests his hand on the top of his cane to wait.

There’s a long pause, then a door opens, and a painfully familiar voice says, “Holy shit, Derek?”

It only takes him a second for the recognition to settle in and the word, “Stiles?” slips from his lips incredulously.

“Oh my god there’s a kid here. And I just said shit. Again.” There’s a slapping noise like Stiles clapped his hand over his mouth, and Derek can’t help a slight chuckle.

“You do remember Laura is her aunt, right?” he offers.

“I just didn’t realize you had a kid. Oh my god she looks just like you. Do people tell you that all the time?”

“Yes,” Derek says dryly.

“Annnnd I realize now you’re totally not here to make small talk. How can I help?”

Derek suddenly doesn’t want to do this anymore. Maybe he’ll just ask for some stamps and pretend like it was nothing, and he and Miriam can go to brunch in the morning, and shop when Laura gets back.

But unfortunately for all that he’s a slight disaster, Stiles is also observant because he says, “Oh. You need like…assistance? Like a guide or…yeah. I can do that.”

Derek almost groans, but Stiles is already breezing past him to where Derek knows the shopping carts are, and Miriam takes the time to tug on his hand again and says, “Daddy is that your friend? He knows auntie?”

“He works at the school with me,” is all Derek says. Luckily Stiles returns with the cart and Derek can put his traveling cart inside, and his cane, and take the handle as Stiles takes the front of it, and begins to lead the way.

“So you have a list, or are we just going to wing it?” Stiles asks.

Miriam takes the opportunity to chirp, “I want some coco puffs!”

\--- 

Shopping is distinctively less hellish than Derek first imagined, and Stiles is pretty good at shooting Miriam’s request for everything sugar without making her cry. He plies her with some all natural fruit bars that have Elsa on the front package instead of the corn syrup monstrosities. “And they’re on sale, too,” he says, leaning into Derek’s space conspiratorially.

Derek can’t help a smile. “You know I’m always thirsty for a sale.”

“I didn’t take you for the bargain shopping, coupon cutting type, Derek,” he says, elbowing him before they move on to the vegan section where Derek requests rice milk, and the vegan cheese shreds since he and Miriam are both lactose intolerant.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. I’m like an onion.”

“Or a parfait?” Stiles offers.

“Please don’t quote Shrek at me,” Derek deadpans.

Stiles laughs as the cart shakes with the stuff he puts inside it. “You started it, Sour-face. Besides, that movie is a national treasure, and I won’t hear a word against it.” He pauses, then says, “Miriam, what’s your favorite movie?”

“Moana,” she says dutifully. She’s still at the Disney movie of the week stage, which is fine. There’ve been far worse than Moana. He still gets eye twitches every time he hears the Doc McStuffins theme song. “She’s has pretty hair and a nice dress and a chicken. Daddy, I want a chicken!”

“I’m not buying you a chicken,” he says dryly.

“I have a ferret,” Stiles says. “He kind of acts like a chicken. Well…he acts like Moana’s chicken. Maybe some day you can come over and meet him.” His tone is cautious, and Derek hopes Stiles doesn’t notice he’s gone very, very warm in the cheeks.

\--- 

As they reach the check-out, there’s a crack of thunder, and even though they’re far from the doors, Derek can smell the heavy rain on the air. It had been predicted to come that day, but before they left, the weather app politely informed him they had several hours before the storm hit.

Apparently the universe hated him.

“Shit,” he muttered as he began to load up the conveyor belt with his stuff.

Stiles leans in, and Derek gets a sudden whiff of the probably too much coffee he’s been drinking on his shift. “I’ll take you home. I’m literally off work in five minutes, and I have my Jeep.”

Derek wants to tell him no thanks, that they’ll be fine. He can call an Uber, or a taxi or something. Wants to say that Stiles doesn’t have a booster seat for Miriam, though neither will the cab he would have to call instead.

“I have a seat, too.”

Derek freezes, the box of rice milk heavy in his hands. “You what?”

“Scott’s got a kid? He’s three now, not too much smaller than Miriam. It’ll probably work. It’ll at least work enough that we can get you home, right?”

Derek licks his lips and realizes there are worse things than this. “Yeah I…okay. Thanks.”

As they load up, he realizes Stiles hasn’t asked why Derek and Miriam are here alone, hasn’t asked where his sisters are like they’re his keepers, or hasn’t implied it was stupid of him to venture out alone on a stormy day. He just offers a solution to an unexpected problem.

It makes him feel warm all over.

\--- 

Miriam does fit in the makeshift seat—though it’s still set up with the five point harness and Miriam had graduated to the booster setting in her own a month ago. But she doesn’t mind the unfamiliar seat, especially after Stiles offers her one of the fruit popsicles. Together he and Stiles get the groceries loaded into the back, then Derek buckles himself in and waits for Stiles to return the cart, and they head out.

GPS leads the way, since Derek is pretty shitty at giving visual directions, and it’s not far besides. The ride is quiet apart from the computer-generated voice giving polite instructions to Derek’s front door.

“I’ll help you get shit in,” Stiles says as he puts the Jeep in park. “Since it’s still pissing rain, and we can do this all in one trip, I think. Then I’ll get out of your hair.”

Derek wants to open his mouth and argue, but for now he just gets Miriam unbuckles and sends her in before he and Stiles divide up the groceries and head through the door.

Where Derek promptly trips over one of Miriam’s barbies, and everything goes flying. He’s pretty sure he didn’t have the eggs, though, so that’s something.

“Miriam,” Derek calls, his voice unfailingly patient as he’s learned to be over his life with living with sighted toddlers, “you left your Barbie out and daddy just tripped.”

Miriam comes hurtling into the room, checking Derek for a bruise before apologizing and quickly picking up her things. Stiles, meanwhile, has gathered up what fell, and Derek can hear the crinkling of plastic bags on the kitchen floor.

“Uh,” Stiles says.

“You’d think after falling on my face so many times in my life I’d stop being embarrassed but…” Derek shrugs, opting to just admit the reason he’s blushing furiously is because this guy he’s kind of starting to…feel things for…just saw him fall flat on his face thanks to a fucking Barbie.

“Give it like a week,” Stiles says. “Trust me. I’m going to humiliate myself so many times you won’t even remember the last time you blushed. It’s my curse.” He stops, then says, “So I should…”

Just as Derek says, “You want to stay for pizza?”

There’s that sort of awkward pause where neither of them really seem sure if the other one meant it. And maybe Stiles was just looking for an easy out, and maybe Derek was reading it all wrong.

Then Stiles says, “Yeah. I mean, I have never said no to pizza in my entire life.”

“I’ll get one with regular chees for you,” Derek promises. “You can go sit. Just…well, you have Scott, you know the rules, right?”

“Don’t move anything, don’t leave my shoes out. Don’t leave you an obstacle course of naked barbies,” Stiles says.

“Well that third one is kind of inevitable, but I’d rather people not help her attempt to break my neck,” Derek says, rubbing his fingers through the back of his hair. To avoid any more weird, social faux pas that he seems destined to keep making today, he hurries into the kitchen to put the groceries away and order his pizza, and get his head back together before this all ends in disaster.

\--- 

When Derek comes back out, everything in its place, and the pizza on the way, he finds Stiles reading a book to Miriam, and Miguel sitting on the floor in front of Derek’s regular spot. Derek adjusts his feet around the dog, then sits, and feels Stiles very close to him.

“He can do it like you, daddy. Braille,” Miriam informs him.

Derek offers a smile. “I know. He told me at the school.”

“I was playing with the rubix cube your daddy has in his desk,” Stiles says, and Derek almost slaps a hand to his forehead because…

“That one has bad words!” Miriam says with a scandalized gasp.

Stiles bursts out with a laugh that sounds like he couldn’t hold it in. “You know about that?”

“Auntie Erica got it. It’s bad words,” she says petulantly.

“Well I took it away from him so he didn’t read the bad words again,” Derek says, and he feels Stiles’ shoulders still moving with his silent giggles.

They calm down after that, and Miriam chooses a movie—Moana, shocking—and the pizza arrives just as baby Moana is laughing at the sound of the ocean. Derek’s not entirely sure, his sanity over Disney is only spared because Miriam watches them without the visual descriptions on.

Either way, she’s enthralled and entertained, and now fed with pizza and a juice box, and Stiles has his own regular cheese pizza loaded with meats and veggies, and they sit companionably on the couch like this is just a thing, that they do, that’s like…normal.

Derek feels a strange longing in his chest, and it’s too soon. Shit, he just met this guy and doesn’t know him from Adam but there’s a tingling in his fingers that wants to touch him, drag him forward and get to know him under warm lips and pressing hands, and hear the way his breath hitches and his throat moans.

Fuck. It’s a lot.

Stiles shifts, and their thighs press together, and neither of them seem inclined to move away.

The moment was broken by Miriam getting cranky, ready for her story and bedtime. “Do you mind if I take care of that?” Derek asks in a quiet voice as Miriam volunteers to put the pizza boxes in the kitchen. “You’ll still be here when I get back?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Stiles says, like a vow, and Derek’s ready to jump out and grab it. To hold him to it.

“Alright,” is what he says instead of all the other things he wants to ask him. He pushes up from the couch and takes Miriam’s hand, and starts the bedtime routine.

When she’s had her Goodnight Moon, and her several kisses, and her nightlight, Derek leans over and kisses her forehead. “Is Stiles gonna sleep over?”

“Maybe,” Derek says, because the answer is probably no, but this is uncharted territory, and leaving it open-ended means no accidental surprises in the morning.

She just sighs and pats his cheek and says, “Kay, night.”

He can hear her even breathing before he even makes it to the door.

\--- 

Stiles is still there when Derek gets back downstairs. He can hear him murmuring quietly to Miguel who’s giving him a response of sleepy dog-huffs. Derek doesn’t sit right away. He gets Miguel’s dinner and makes sure the dog door seal is off so he can access the back yard, and then finally, _finally_ he makes his way over.

“This isn’t how I imagined my trip to the grocery store going,” he admits.

Stiles shuffles a little closer and clears his throat. “Yeah uh…me either. Like even though we left things pretty good the other day, I kind of thought you hated me.”

“I didn’t…I was an ass,” Derek says.

“With good reason. I swear I get it. We went out for beers after—we met up with Scott and Boyd and Erica,” he says, “and Boyd just kind of confirmed everything you were saying. He knows me, you know? So he knows I wasn’t trying to be some douchebag about the job, but he also told me that pretty much yeah, everyone at the school feels like that.”

Derek ducks his head slightly. “I don’t want you to quit.”

“I’m not going to,” Stiles says, an edge to his voice. “I’ll do everything I can to make sure they can use me against you, but also I want to make sure that if some kid chooses Beacon Hills High for whatever reason—any reason at all—they have someone who knows how to help.”

“I get it,” Derek says.

There’s a moment where Derek thinks maybe everything between them passed, and then Stiles says, “So Miriam’s mom…”

Derek swallows thickly. “She’s not in the picture.” He waits, then decides if he’s going to even consider anything with Stiles, he has to be able to tell the truth. “Jennifer Blake. Or…Julia. Whatever,” he kind of spits.

Stiles sucks in his breath. “Oh my god. That’s why you…”

“It wasn’t good. I mean, it was, at first. Between us. It was good, but then it wasn’t, and then it got worse. Then she attacked me.” Derek brushes his hand along his side where he’s got a crisscross pattern of scars that Stiles is probably going to see at some point, if they keep on this path. “She went to jail, and about six weeks later I found out she was pregnant. Miriam was born in the prison hospital, and I took a DNA test, and I picked her up about four days later.”

He doesn’t tell Stiles about how shit-scared he was. About how he hadn’t been prepared for the idea of fatherhood, especially to a child whose mother was in prison for twenty years. He didn’t tell Stiles how out of his depth he felt, and how wrong he felt even saying that because he felt like he had to be ten times better than anyone else in order to prove he could do this. The DCS incident only made it that much worse.

He was only just starting to calm down.

“I didn’t know,” Stiles says very softly.

“I don’t tell most people,” Derek admits. “Then again, I don’t really date either so…” He huffs a slight laugh, and shrugs. “If you want to get out of here…”

“Is that what you want?” Stiles asks, making no move to stand up.

Derek waits, then shakes his head. “No. No I don’t. I want you to stay, and I kind of want to kiss you. I want to take things slow—because it’s been a long time, and I have a kid so it’s complicated. But she likes you, and that’s a big deal.”

Stiles chuckles softly, then shifts until he's taking Derek’s hands in his, his lips soft against the backs of Derek’s knuckles. “I’m good with that. And kissing sounds so badass right now.”

Derek huffs, but he reaches up and cups the side of Stiles’ cheek and draws him in. The kiss is chaste, a warm press of lips slightly parted to lock together in a slow, drawn-out moment. And then it's over, but they stay in close, Derek’s hand still on his cheek, thumb rubbing over ridges and dips in the warm skin.

“I have a lot of moles,” Stiles admits.

“That’s a deal-breaker,” Derek says. “Sorry. You have to leave now.”

“Okay like first of all, your deadpan is way freaky and it’s going to take me a while before I don’t immediately take you seriously,” Stiles said. Then he smacks Derek on the ribs. “Secondly, you’re kind of a dickhead.”

“Well, to be fair, you knew that about me already, and you’re still here,” Derek points out.

Stiles huffs, then leans in to kiss his neck, then the edge of his jaw, then his mouth again. “I’m still here,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Derek got his hands into the front of Stiles’ shirt, and kept him in close. “Good,” he all-but growled against his lips. And it was. It was really damn good.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note- I'm not a teacher, but several of the people I went to school with went on to go work for our former State School for the Blind, so Derek's frustrations are very real, though it might be different in California than where I grew up, I don't know. I know it's different from state to state, so just take it with a grain of salt and some creative license. Any questions feel free to ask!


End file.
